


Absent Minded

by orphan_account



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, and other random rumored stuff, like stan/kyle, some weirdly hinted clyde/token for no reason other than????, vague relationships in the background, wendy/bebe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5526866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Craig becomes antisocial and reclusive when he enters high school  and manages to get away with skipping class for almost four years before it blows up in his face. Tweek is bad at school. Both wind up struggling to catch up over winter break in an attempt to graduate on time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absent Minded

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, well, shit. Hi. I haven't posted my writing publicly online since back when Quizilla was alive and in it's prime, so excuse me if I seem a little nervous. It's been a LONG time.
> 
> I wrote this for a friend as a Christmas present because she wanted Creek. I've never written South Park fanfiction before in my life and so hopefully I did everything justice, especially the characters. I'll be honest and say I don't know where I'm taking this and just swinging wildly as I go, but I hope you all enjoy the ride.
> 
> Oh, and a final comment - I couldn't remember if South Park had details for a canon high school so I made one up, including a principal. Hope that's alright with everyone.

Craig was willing to admit he didn’t have a great attendance record.

  
During his first year of high school it only took three days for him to skip class for the first time. He’d snuck out with a couple of the guys to go watch an action movie and had enjoyed it so much he did it again the next week by himself. By his second year of high school he was regularly skipping class on his own to wander around town and play videogames at home. Some days he just wouldn’t show up at all. While his friends started dedicating themselves to school or at least pretending to under the threat of their parents, he started to distance himself by disappearing on his own.

  
By the beginning of his third year he stopped setting an alarm on his phone. He woke up at noon and at some point that year stopped bothering to stop by the school to at least pretend he was showing up. No one even seemed to notice when he was missing. His parents gave him shit for it the first couple days until they gave up or got too busy to deal with it. He helped himself to the beer in his dad’s side of the fridge and dug out the weed he got as a gift years back, and for his entire third year of high school all he did was get drunk, high, and play Call of Duty.

By the start of his final year he hadn’t even showed up once. If you asked Craig Tucker what classes he had for his final year of high school, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. He had essentially disappeared off the entire school roster and happily took advantage of it. He was living the high school dream…  
And he’d gotten so comfortable with it that he was genuinely surprised when it blew up in his face.

 

~

 

The first sign something was wrong? He walked in on his family gathered around the table, staring him down as he walked through the front door with a bag of chips and soda in hand.

“Craig.” His father sounded gruff, which was normal, but when Craig flipped him off his dad’s hand didn’t even so much as twitch in retaliation. He immediately started to sweat. “We need to talk.”

His mother wrung her hands around her cup of coffee. Ruby was the only one who didn’t seem entirely dark and sullen, eating candy she had left over from Halloween. Craig suddenly became very interested in looking at the clock and reading it over and over.

“Sit down Craig.” It was his mom’s serious tone that finally made him move and take a seat, though he kept his eyes down and played with the doily at the center of the table. He briefly caught his sister’s gaze and the shit eating grin she had on her face told him more than he needed to know. “Your school called. They said you haven’t been showing up to class.”

That was an understatement but he kept his mouth shut. He flipped off his sister and gained a bit of solace in having her flip her finger back at him, sticking out her tongue. Then she ran out of the room and he was alone with the stares of his parents.

“Apparently… they made an error on the roster.” Craig lifted his head at that, narrowing his eyes at his father. Error? “They weren’t even aware you were missing class until they tried to prep for graduation in the spring and found out that you hadn’t finished any of your classes.”

Craig spaced out. Error? Seriously? That was why they never bothered calling or sending letters trying to warn him? And they didn’t notice until NOW? He started scowling at the wall between his parent’s heads. They were still talking but he was lost in his own thoughts. The school making a stupid error and forgetting about him didn’t explain how his friends stopped giving a fuck when he stopped showing up to class. It didn’t explain how none of them wanted to hang out or spend any time with him. It didn’t explain how he spent the last three or so years tied up in his room, being lonely and hating his whole life (although arguably not as much as he hated school, otherwise he would have actually started showing up).

It was his father snapping his fingers that brought him back to the present, his eyes snapping to his dad’s face and glaring at him.

“Are you listening?”

“No.” Craig figured being honest was better than pretending to be a good child.

“Craig…” His mom reached out and grabbed his hands and suddenly he regretted not listening, because she only did that when things were really bad. “This is serious.”

“They’re giving you two options, and I think it’s very generous of them. Since they made such a stupid error in the first place, they’re willing to brush it all under the rug by letting you attend their winter break cram school –“

“Hell no.”

“Or you can retake high school entirely.”

“Hell NO.” He looked between his parents, from the hard glare to the soft worry placed on each of their faces. Both made him uncomfortable. “I can just get my GED.I don’t need to deal with this bullshit.”

His father immediately scrunched up his face and looked to his mom, visibly upset. “I told you he’d do this.” His dad scowled from his spot at the table, getting angrier, and to contrast his mom grew more perturbed. She gave a big, fake smile reserved for bake sales and dealing with Mrs. Broflovski. Craig felt like he was in a sitcom. “The little shit can’t even recognize when he’s being given a second chance after he threw it away the first time.”

“Thomas.” His mom gave a sharp look to everyone in the room, her basic warning, before softening again and gripping Craig’s hands as pleasantly as possible. “Honey, don’t you think it would be better to properly graduate at your high school rather than a GED?” Her good cop routine wasn’t going to work this time.

“No.” He flipped her off. He feels smug when his mom did it back, finally shattering her happy smile permanently.

“Craig.” Her tone was harsh and the grip on his hand turned into a vice. “As your mother, I’m no longer asking you, I am demanding you to do this or … I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” He leaned back into his seat, taking his hand back after wrenching it free from his mom’s hold. “Ground me? I’m almost 18.”

His mother straightened in her chair and suddenly the look on her face is dark enough to even have his dad looking concerned. Craig considered a way he could backpedal out of the conversation but only drew blanks. He reassured himself that there was no power his mom had over him anymore short of kicking him out of the house, which she couldn’t legally do for another year at the least.

“Craig Tucker, if you don’t take this generous offer from the school this instant, I am taking the sledgehammer out of the garage, going up to your room, and destroying all of your electronics.”

He snorted. That was a new one. “Yeah, okay. You can’t even lift that thing.”

His smile stayed in place until his mom stood up and disappeared into the garage. When she actually walked out with a sledgehammer he started to panic. “Woah, woah, wait! Mom wait!”

“Hold him back, Thomas!” His dad barely managed to grab his arms before Craig was dragging himself and his dad upstairs to his room, coming in just in time to see his mom lifting the hammer well above her head and aiming for his PS4.

“Mom don’t - I NEED THAT!”

“SAY YOU'LL GO TO SCHOOL!”

“NO! FUCK NO! FUCK YOU-“ He didn’t even have enough time to flip his mom off before she brought the hammer down, screaming like a banshee warrior. “OKAY I WILL HOLY SHIT MOM DON’T!”

The hammer crashed down on the floor next to his PS4, rattling the room and leaving a massive dent in the floor. Craig slid to his knees, listening to the sounds of his mother breathing hard in the distance, both their eyes locked on the PS4 sitting blissfully unaware next to his TV. When his mom finally turned her head she had beads of sweat running down her face and a crazed look in her eye. She reached down and wretched the game system free from the TV, dragging it away with hammer in tow and pausing only to jut an accusing finger in Craig’s direction.

“You’re going to cram school. Six am. This winter break.” She walked off and dragged the sledgehammer behind her with a bundle of PS4 cords, leaving marks in the wood floor. His dad followed after her, probably to double check she wasn’t going to break anything in their room next, and Craig was left alone to stay kneeled on the floor, sweating and shaking like he’d just had his entire life threatened.

And that was the beginning to a long story of how Craig Tucker ended up spending his entire winter break, including Christmas, trapped at the place he hated most: school.

 

~

 

He didn’t think it was possible, but cram school managed to be worse than regular high school. He was forced to wake up at six in the morning, dragged out of bed by his mom ripping off the covers, sledgehammer leaned up against the wall (she’d taken a liking to carrying it everywhere, even when she left the house).  
The school was dark except for the one room his principal pushed him in, where all they did was hand him a workbook and told him to complete it. No teacher. No friends. No television. Nothing. The principal had stopped by only once to tell him that it was of the utmost importance that he completed every workbook they gave him. Apparently that was their attempt to make up for every class he’d missed throughout the years (and every absence they’d missed of their own error). He opened it once and found the whole thing full of math equations. All the numbers swirled together. He never opened it again.

They weren’t serious, were they? He couldn’t even tell what class this was for. He looked up to see his principal’s shadow pass by the door. Apparently they didn’t even want to hire another person to keep watch of him… it was just the principal wandering around hating his job.  
If they expected him to actually do this, they were idiots. He blinked away the blur of sleep from his eyes and rested his head on the quadratic equation. A couple minutes later he was asleep.

 

~

 

It was the rattling of his desk that stirred him awake. He’d drooled all over his workbook and blurred the ink, and he stared at his own spit as his brain tried to catch up with his body. Was there an earthquake? The desk kept rattling and he furrowed his brow, moving his head just enough to catch a glimpse of a coffee cup sitting at the edge of his vision. The classic ‘hang in there baby’ cat decorated the side, faded from age, and coffee had spilled out over the top. It felt eerily familiar.

He twisted his head further upward, straining his neck, and looked at a mop of blonde, gnatted hair. Every curl was bouncing rapidly, the body it was connected to randomly twitching and giving jumps and starts. He could recognize that type of behavior from halfway across the globe. He squinted his eyes a little harder and rolled his upper body so he wouldn’t get a neck cramp as he stared at the boy sitting across from him.

“Tweek?”

“AH! Jesus CHRIST!” Tweek shot upright and took the whole desk with him, knocking his hot coffee over onto Craig’s lap, who jumped up cursing and screaming in pain.

“FUCK!”

“SHIT!”

“OH MY GOD!”

“I’M SO SORRY!”

Tweek ripped his coat free from a nearby chair, knocking the poor thing to the floor as he dived and started patting down Craig’s crotch. All he managed to do was rapidly punch Craig in the dick. He wheezed in pain mid swear word and buckled over, grabbing Tweek’s hands and tossing the boy to the side as he gripped the nearest table and crumpled to the ground. “What the – WHAT THE FUCK TWEEK!?”

“Oh Jesus! Craig! Augh! Fuck I’m so sorry!”

The door burst open a second later, the principal standing in silence as he watched Craig hold back tears and cup his dick while Tweek openly cried and tore his hair out.

Thirty minutes later they were both mopping up the floors, Craig limping with a bag of ice. Tweek kept his eyes focused very intently on the mop bucket and pretended like one side of the room needed his attention more than anything else. Craig was fine with that.

He kept his glare on the floor and tried not to get too annoyed at Tweek’s constant noises and other quirks. He could feel the coffee freak constantly glancing up at him, then panicking and looking down again. By the time they finished cleaning, half of cram school was over and Craig was left to stare desperately at the clock, willing it to speed up so he could go home and get the hell out of there.

“U-guh!” Craig grimaced and scowled. Tweek’s constant shaking was wiggling the desks, which were unfortunately conjoined. They were essentially sitting in an empty room, waiting out the clock and trying not to look at each other. He didn’t even care to know what Tweek was doing here and if he was in the same predicament he was. He was just pissed off and wanted to get home to drink the warm beer he hid in his desk. Hopefully his mom hadn’t found it and smashed it in the driveway with her new sledgehammer friend. Tweek made another series of squeaks and shouts. He felt a headache tense up in his brow.

He didn’t hate Tweek. Maybe, if you had asked him a few years ago, he would have said he hated the kids guts with every ounce of his soul, but he would have said that about everyone. His anger at the world had simmered down into a pit of indifference. Instead, he and Tweek had… a weird relationship. He can still remember when they dated from fourth grade all the way to sixth grade. It was basically just being best friends considering they did nothing more than hold hands, but they still called each other boyfriends and went out to the movies together.

It was weird.

Craig felt his headache get even worse just thinking about it.

The dating part wasn’t the problem. It had been when they ‘broke up.’ He can’t even remember what the fight had been about, but they ended their relationship without any gravitas. They stopped hanging out. They stopped eating lunch together. They stopped being friends. They didn’t even become enemies. They just stopped everything about each other.

Tweek made another panicked squeak and Craig finally sneaked a look at him, finding the blonde buried in page one of his workbook. He seemed to be having as much trouble as he was. He scowled and looked back at the clock.

All he had to do was survive a few more hours.

And then four more weeks.

His headache felt like it would crack his head right open.

 

~

 

The next day he showed up, Tweek was already there, still stuck on page one of his workbook and attempting to drink a cup of coffee while he shook like a leaf. “Ph.D. – Taking your B.S. to the next level” was written in black font across the front of his mug. He knew for sure Tweek didn’t have a Ph.D. In fact, he was pretty no one in his family did. Why did he even own that mug?

He gave Tweek a wide berth to get to his seat, blocking his crotch with his hands just in case.

When he sat down the other boy looked up at him in panic but otherwise seemed okay and went back to his work. He expected the poor guy to never speak to a word to him, always being too nervous to even open his mouth… but apparently Tweek had grown up since they were kids, because the second Craig tried to look at the clock the boy slapped his hand down right on top of his work book and nearly scared him out of his chair.

‘H-HEY! Do- do you know how to do this?” Tweek spun his book around and pointed to the front page. It was titled ‘a basic equation’ but Craig didn’t even know where to begin with it.

“No.” Craig answered truthfully, flipping Tweek off under the table. “You went to school more than I did. Shouldn’t you know?”

“Ah! Shit. SHIT.” Tweek started wrapping his fingers up tightly into his hair, a familiar sight. Craig stared down at his own book and opened up to the middle. Was this the same page he opened up to last time? It all sorta blurred together. “How- how do they expect me to do this?! AH! I can’t do this! This is too much pressure!”

“Then don’t do it. What are they gonna do about it?”

Tweek looked up at him with wild eyes, pupils darting around his face like he was a moving Rorschach portrait. “U-UH… they won’t let us graduate?!” Craig raised a brow. Okay, yeah, maybe that was true…

“That’s not that big of a deal. Just get your GED later or something.”

“AH! I can’t do that! My parents would –AUGH – be so pissed!”

Craig sighed and leaned his whole body back in his chair. That’s right. He almost forgot about Tweek’s parents. Hell, he forgot about his own parents until they started threatening to destroy his things with construction equipment. He frowned, genuinely investing cognitive effort into solving Tweek’s problems since it was a little more interesting than staring at the clock for ten hours. “Why does it even matter if you graduate high school or not? Your dad owns a business. You’re basically guaranteed a job.”

“Craig this might – AH – SURPRISE YOU.” Craig actually focused back on Tweek, finding the blonde staring him down with one twitching eye and a scowl. That was kinda new. Tweek seemed like he’d changed a lot over the years. “But I don’t want t-to work in a coffee shop my whole life – ack!” His whole neck twitched, pressing his ear to his shoulder and grunting. He stayed like that and Craig was polite enough not to comment. “I’d like to go a little HIGHER in life, y-y’know?!”

Craig did know. Sorta. He’d given up on that dream for himself but he could understand at least not wanting to mop floors and make mocha Frappuccino’s for the rest of eternity.

Instead of saying any of that he just grunted.

“S-so if I don’t finish this STUPID BOOK, it’s over! This is the one chance I get and Jesus Christ if I screw it up I might as well put on my stupid coffee apron on and never take it off – AH!” Tweek gripped his hair again and ripped out a good chunk, actually making Craig a little concerned. He reached out a hand to stop him, pulling the boy’s shaking hands back down to the table to rest at where their desks connected. It made him nervous. He remembered when they used to hold hands when they were younger and he hoped this wasn’t super awkward and gay.

“Hey asshole, we just washed this place yesterday. Stop getting your hair everywhere.”

Tweek jolted, but didn’t say anything. He seemed to be lost in distressing thoughts rather than really paying attention to what was going on.

“Listen, just because you fuck up high school or get your GED doesn’t mean you have to work a coffee shop your whole life.” Tweek made a noise which sounded like he didn’t believe him, but at least he was listening. “But that being said, we have four weeks to finish this stupid work book. And if we can get through the first math part, it’s all easy from there. Hell, we could even finish early.” He actually wasn’t so sure about that but he was willing to believe it was true. “And besides…” He smirked as his own plan made itself in his head, his eyes briefly glancing at the door for the principal. “Nobody said we couldn’t get a little outside help…” He dragged his phone out of his pocket and pulled up Google, holding it up with full confidence.

“That’s cheating.” Tweek replied, surprisingly calm, but he didn’t seem entirely adverse to the idea.

“So? You gonna tell on me?”

Tweek looked back at the questions sitting on the paper in front of him with a twitch and then back up to Craig, who was already looking up the answer to whatever math question he was struggling with. Then he looked to the door, just waiting for the principal to burst in and catch them. After a full minute with nobody storming in to apprehend them, he turned back and filled himself with as much confidence as his shaking body would let him.

“O-okay, what’s – AUGH – the first answer?”

 

~

 

It took less than a week to finish the single workbook with the help of Google. They’d highfived outside the principal’s office before walking and throwing the books onto his desk.

The principal, meanwhile, took his time sorting through the pages of equations and formulas, forcing the two to sit in the seats in front of him and sweat. Craig had to keep his hand pinned to his leg to stop himself from flipping the guy off and Tweek’s tics got worse the longer time dragged on. The principal, dressed in a Christmas sweater with a tired, dead look in his eye, turned the page with a lick of his fingers and looked unimpressed. “So, which one of you has the phone?”

Tweek let out a muffled ‘Jesus Christ’ into his sleeve. Craig shrugged and tilted his head as innocently as he knew how. “Sorry, what?”

“Boys, I’ve worked here for thirty years. I know what cheating looks like.” He put the books down and looked up to stare Craig in the face. Craig stared back but held his breath. “And this is cheating.”

Tweek yelled again behind him.

“Well, we worked together, if that’s what you mean.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’ve been studying at home, y’know. What did you think I was doing when I wasn’t showing up to school? Getting high and playing videogames? I happen to love math.”

“Y-YEAH! HE LOVES MATH!” Tweek surprisingly came up as his hype-man, which Craig appreciated. The principal narrowed his eyes and sighed.

“Okay, listen. I’m too tired to play this game. I’ve worked this position long enough to know it when I see it.” He paused and looked to Tweek, who suddenly backpedaled from his earlier confidence and nearly twitched himself out of his chair. “Tweek, wait outside. I need to speak to Mr. Tucker privately.”

“GAH! Y-yes sir.” Tweek stumbled out of his seat and tumbled towards the door, letting himself out with only a quick glance back at Craig before the door closed. The sound of it shutting made the back of Craig’s neck sweat and his heart beat a little faster. He didn’t like the idea of talking to the principal one-on-one. He would rather this whole problem just disappear so he could go back to his fucking room and forget school and all the life surrounding it existed. He didn’t realize he was still turned around, focused on the doorknob until his principal cleared his throat and gathered his attention. He spun around to find the man’s eyes closed, fingers gripping his temples like he was afraid they were about to fall off from his head.

“I’m not going to reprimand you.” He started clearly and slowly, his hand slowly falling and sliding off his nose. His eyes opened and studied Craig closely, making him even more anxious. Not even flipping the man off from beneath the table calmed him down. As Tweek would say, this was too much for him to handle. “Do you know why?” Craig didn’t say anything. He dug his nails into his palm instead. “Because I don’t want a lawsuit over a kid who managed to disappear in our record books because of a typist error and so for the past four years has weaseled out of every class thanks to teacher negligence. Do you understand? The last thing I need is South Park High following the same low standards of South Park Elementary.”

Craig didn’t know what to say so he just grunted to show he was listening. He didn’t like to be in the spotlight. Kyle or Stan or Cartman were spotlight kids, not him. Even Tweek was a better kid for that than he was. He risked a glance back at the door but nothing had changed so he focused back on the topic at hand. This conversation wasn’t going badly for him… but he still didn’t like it.

“So, what you’re saying is that… You fucked up.”

The principal’s lips nearly disappeared as they pulled into a thin line.

“What I’m saying is that… I’d rather nip this problem in the bud before the whole town finds out, and I’m willing to say that this book is in perfect order, along with the other six you still need to complete, if you just play along.” That was the best news Craig had ever heard for most of his life. He had to bite back the grin was spreading across his face as his anxiety rushed out of his chest.

“So I can go home?“

“No. What part of ‘play along’ did you not get? For all intents in purposes, Craig Tucker is still in school, giving it his all to graduate high school.”  
The grin he’d been holding back quickly died in his mouth.

“This is bullshit.”

“Are you kidding?! This is the biggest deal I’ve ever cut in all my years working at this school. All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, pretend to be a good student, and show up here for the rest of your winter break and school year to at least make it LOOK like you’re doing something. Then I’ll fill out your stupid work books because God knows you aren’t going to get passing marks if you do it yourself. South Park High keeps its decent record, doesn’t look like a school for complete fuck ups with a terrible administration system, AND keeps its funding. You can go back to doing nothing with your life. It’s the best deal you could ever possibly ask for – if you think it’s bullshit you can go back to your parents and let them know why you couldn’t even show up to sit in a chair for a couple hours while someone did all the work for you.”

Craig actually hissed through his teeth at that. The principal apparently knew how to hit too close to home. Still, he wanted to stay there and act a little strong. He had to look like he had the upper hand. He had to get some power in this slippery slope… technically, he should have all the power already. The principal was the one who fucked up and now had to do something illegal to hide his mistake. Craig was merely along for the ride to take advantage of it. He felt his stomach twist with that familiar glee he used to get when he bullied kids in elementary and middle school. He grasped at straws at where he could take his new power under the circumstances.

“What about Tweek?”

“What ABOUT Tweek?” The man bit back, apparently losing his entire good attitude the second he had Craig alone and no one watching. “He’s here for actual cram school to make up for his bad grades. That’s no fault of mine or the schools.”

“Yeah, but he’s been with me all week. We were working together.” The man raised his brow, his begrudging but nonverbal cue for Craig to continue. “Don’t you think he’ll have something to say if I end up not having to do anymore work but he still has more to do, when both of us did the exact same thing the first week? Wouldn’t it be really bad if Tweek Tweak went back home to his parents and vented all his frustrations about how Craig Tucker finished early and didn’t have to do anymore work while he was stuck working for three more works?”

They stared each other down. Craig though for a second that this was going to backfire in his face like everything else lately, but he watched with glee as his principal fell apart and sunk back in his chair. “God damn it. You’re killing me. Do you know how much work I have to do for this?” Craig shrugged his shoulders. He genuinely didn’t give a single fuck. He ate up every moment the man looked like he was suffering up until the moment he reached into his side drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, drinking it straight from the bottom. “Fuck this school. Fuck you stupid kids.” He opened up the packets Craig and Tweek had handed in earlier and glanced them over before taking another quick drink and gagging. Then he looked Craig up and down like he’d only just properly gotten a look at him. “Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to waste hours of my life doing not on your packets to appease the administration… but also Tweeks. Do you understand? But in return… you have to at least PRETEND like you are working here. That means showing up to this building, staying here, and going home talking about nothing more than whatever boring, school related activity you can think of any time anyone asks you anything about this. Okay?” Craig wanted to kick and scream and say no, that he wanted to go home and sit in his room and drink the last of the warm beer hidden in his desk and rot away playing video games, but instead he held his tongue and nodded his head.

“What am I supposed to do when I’m here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” The man loosened his tie and ran his hands roughly through his hair, standing most of it straight up. “Just… don’t destroy anything and please, for the love of God, don’t let anyone know what’s going on. If so much as one person outside out of our little triad finds out about this, I’m throwing you under the bus as fast as possible.” Craig wanted to ask how exactly he planned to do that, because from his perspective the man looked to be on the worst end of things, but he held his tongue again. Now wasn’t the time. For once he was counting his blessings. "Now get out of my office." The principal finally snapped and took another drink from his whiskey, putting it half-empty. “I like to be alone when I cry.”

  
Craig got up and left before he had to be anywhere near the mess that was about to take place in that office.

When he walked out Tweek was waiting outside the door, his hand scratching up the front of his pants. His head whipped around to look at Craig so fast he gave himself minor whiplash and cried pathetically, falling back against the waiting room couch and staring up at Craig from where he was. “W-well?!”

“He…” Craig paused and pinched his brow. This whole stupid thing was giving him a headache. He’d been so stressed only minutes before. He should have guessed that something ridiculous and stupid would have happened for this whole situation to get even weirder. It wouldn’t be South Park if things didn’t get weird. “I need a drink.” He walked off to try and find the nearest soda machine, dragging his feet as Tweek bounced up to follow him.

“What did he, ack, say?! Are we screwed? Sh-shit! Is he calling my parents? Oh Jesus! They’re gonna be so pissed-“ Tweek trailed off into swears and shudders and Craig fished the only dollar out of his pocket and bought himself a Dr. Pepper. The machine whirred and hissed but in the end, when he checked the bottom tray, there wasn’t anything there. He felt his hands ball into fists before he started yelling and punched the machine, knocking his fist clean through the plastic and scratching up his knuckles. Tweek yelled with him, scared and startled as he pressed up against the wall panic. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Craig pulled his hand back and stared at the hole he’d made. A soft thunk followed in the silence, his Dr. Pepper rolling right out of the machine and hitting his foot. He stared at it with a blank expression, breathing hard and feeling more tired than he’d felt for days. It was only when Tweek grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him that he finally snapped back to clearer thoughts, finding himself staring at two rapidly moving pupils watching his face. “W-what…. Did he say? I gotta, ugh, I gotta know Craig. What’s got you so, ack, pis-pissed off?”

It took him a couple seconds to respond, but once he did he found it tumbling out. The conversation with the principal, the ridiculous scheme requiring them to hang out at the school for their entire winter break PRETENDING they were working, and even how the school fucked up in the first place. He spoke as they walked their way back to the classroom set up for them and Tweek, surprisingly, kept quiet as he talked. By the time they reached their room Craig readily collapsed onto the only desk in the whole space and yelled into the fake, metal wood. He didn’t care if it looked like he was throwing a tantrum. He smashed a fist into it for good measure while he was at it.

“This is fucking hell.”

“It’s not, ugh, so bad. Not bad enough to be, hngh, punching soda machines.” Tweek carefully move to the coffee he’d left behind in the room, now cold, and drank it all down. His cup today was one of the basic ones they sold at Harbucks except the name was misspelled as ‘Star.’ It was probably from a crate order that wasn’t done correctly. He couldn’t imagine how many more Tweek’s parents had tucked away in their house, desperate to give away without misbranding their company. “I’m, guh, happy you’re here at least, AH. W-we get to hang out. I haven’t seen you in, Jesus, a really long time. Everyone thought you were, ah, dead, ngh.”

Craig groaned against the table. “I wish I was dead.”

Tweek sat down across from him and they stayed there in silence for a while. It had started snowing outside and he could picture all the guys sledding up on the hill or skating on the lake. Well, maybe. He hadn’t done that with them in a long time, so maybe they stopped doing things like that.  
A kick to his shins under the table made him jolt upright and Tweek gave him a fumbling apology. Still, it knocked him out of his sullen mood enough to realize he could be spending the next three hours by having a conversation. Tweek really wasn’t that bad to talk to once you got past his weird quirks.

“I guess… it’s nice we don’t have anymore school work to do. Or whatever.”

“NGH. Yeah.” The blonde went to take a drink from his coffee only to remember he drank it all moments ago. Then he just stared at the bottom in panic. Craig winced and rolled his shoulders. Was this only awkward for him or was Tweek feeling the same way?

What was regular to talk about again? He couldn’t even remember the last time he spoke to Token or Clyde, who were the only normal friends he had, and now he was talking to Tweek who, while not the weirdest guy in South Park, definitely had his quirks. He drummed his fingers across the table to try and keep his focus.

“Are you, uh, dating anyone?”

Okay, he knew enough about talking to know that was a terrible place to start. Craig nearly threw himself out the window at his own stupidity. Who starts off talking about dating with a guy they’ve barely talked to since middle school? And who they were dating before that?

“AH, JESUS – NO! God. Shit.” Tweek panicked, nearly cracking his coffee mug in shock. Craig opened his mouth to change the subject but was stopped short by Tweek breaking off into rambling. “I dated – ugh – Bebe, gosh, last year? Maybe? Jesus! But she, ah, is a huge lesbian!”

“No shit.” That’s all he could think to say. It was enough to keep Tweek talking.

“Yeah! She and, ugh, her and Wendy, they’re dating now, and ngh, y’know, so are-“

“Wait, Wendy? I always thought she had the hots for Cartman or something. She seemed like the weird kinky type to be into that fatass.”

“W-well, she did! But, ugh, then Kyle-“

“No. Please don’t tell me Cartman and Kyle-“

“No! God, Jesus! Kyle and Wendy, they dated, but only because it was for, ack!, show and then- Cartman got jealous but then – Well Wendy is bisex- AH- ual and so she actually liked both him and Bebe but, ngh, Bebe asked first and now Cartman is part of, Jesus Christ, the KKK, but not the one ghost KKK the snake one.”

“The what.”

“The, uh, the snake KKK.”

Craig pinched his brow. He’d forgotten the kind of weird shit his friends could get into. When he locked himself in his room, everything seemed very simple and… regular. Now that he was back into the regular swing of South Park strangeness, the idea of a snake KKK made sense without even a bit of backstory.

“Right. Okay. So Bebe is gay, Wendy is gay-“

“Bisexual.”

“Wendy is bisexual.” Craig corrected, leaning back in his chair and looking out at the snow. “Is there any other queers I should know about?”

“Uh, Stan and Kyle are boyfriends-“

“That’s not a surprise. You could have told me that in third grade.” Tweek laughed with him and they both went quiet for a bit.

“Well, uh, there’s a lot of, ah jeez, there’s a lot gay going around Clyde’s, uh, straight, he says-“

“Yeah, sure.” Craig slurred out his words sarcastically and scoffed before he even thought about what he was doing. It was only when he caught Tweek staring at him that he turned pink and cleared his throat. “Clyde’s, uh, him and Token used to… he’s not straight. Well, he didn’t used to be straight. I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Tweek looked down at his empty coffee mug again and Craig starts bouncing his foot. This is weird. That was fucking weird. Not totally bad weird, just weird. He realized in one quick look that Tweek hadn’t changed all that much from how he used to be as a kid. The bags under his eyes were more noticeable, his hair a little longer and more unkempt, and he was a lot taller and ganglier than he was before, but otherwise he was the same. He even kept the same fashion sense of disheveled, poorly button shirts and tattered jeans. It was comforting to see not everything had changed.

“We could probably break into the teacher’s break room, y’know?” The quizzical look Tweek gave him prompted him to continue and explain himself, so he reached out and touched Tweek’s cup with one of his knuckles. “They have a coffee machine in there. I don’t think the principal will care, not when he’s drinking and hating his job as much as he is.” Tweek stared at him but stood up, mug in tow, with determination in his eyes.

They spent the rest of the day at the school trying to break into the teacher’s lounge, and by the time they made it in and brewed a pot of coffee, it was an hour past the time they were expected to leave. They walked home together until the road forced them to split ways, and by that time Craig had found out all about how well Tweek’s parent’s coffee shop was doing, the rumor of Butter’s being gay for Cartman, and Stan’s abs.

When he got home he rushed up to his room to check over all his belongings. His PS4 was still missing (perhaps never to be seen again…) but his laptop was left unscathed. The warm beer was still tucked in the desk too, waiting for a rainy day. He kept it there and checked Facebook, something he hadn’t done in a long time. He quickly went to Stan’s profile and – yep. Abs. He browsed a bit more from there, shifting through profiles like a stalker to try and find out what his old friends were up to. Kyle planning for college. Stan playing football. Bebe winning a big scholarship. Cartman getting a new car. Butters being out of state for Christmas.

He stayed up until 2am scouring profiles and reading updates. More than once he tried typing in his own post but never actually posted it. Nothing was good enough. Nothing was interesting enough. It actually hurt to see that he hadn’t updated his profile since middle school, and it was only for something a friend, Clyde, had tagged him in. He stared at the screen as Cartman posted another picture of himself in his new car, which Butters commented on almost instantly. He wanted to write something too, maybe a playful jibe like they used to do. ‘Surprised you could fit your fatass through the doorframe’ or something. He didn’t even attempt to type it out. What if they didn’t joke like that anymore? What if he made himself look like an idiot? And even if they did, was Craig a good enough friend still to get away with that stuff?

He stared at the post as a few more comments piled in, most of which were from a conversation between Cartman and Butters.

He shut his laptop down and crawled into bed.

 

~

 

The next morning he headed straight for the teacher’s lounge the second he walked in, completely exhausted. Staying up until two in the morning when his mom kept forcing him to wake up at six was a terrible idea. To no surprise, Tweek was already waiting in the lounge, nursing an empty cup and sitting away from the door. He was surprisingly still with his gaze focused on something beyond the coffee pot, lost in his own thoughts. Craig cleared his throat in an attempt not to startle him and failed miserably.

“J-JESUS CHIRST!” Tweek jumped in his chair but thankfully launched nothing off the table, keeping a vice grip on his mug as he twisted around to glare at Craig. “Stop scaring, AGH, me!”

“I was trying NOT to.” Craig flipped him off on instinct and was a little confused when Tweek actually laughed back at him. It was a shrill weird, nervous laugh but it was real laughter none-the-less. He didn’t hear that a lot from Tweek. “What?”

“The…” Tweet twitched as he pointed at Craig’s hand, and then, to better explain himself, flipped Craig off. “That, ugh, I thought you stopped doing it, ngh.”

“Oh.” Craig looked at his hands and flexed them a little, and then used both of them to flip Tweek off. The twitching wreck of a guy did the same and they both managed a smile. “What’s your mug today?”

“Ngh, shit, it’s-“ He lifted it up. Cats wearing band uniforms and carrying instruments strolled along the bottom. It looked pretty new. “It’s, ah, my mom’s!”  
The coffee pot beeped and Tweek all but shot out of his chair, desperately filling up his cup and drinking his coffee black. Craig watched him with morbid fascination. The blonde filled up his cup a second time and this time let the cup rest in his hands instead of guzzling it like it was water in a desert. Craig helped himself to what was left, filling up one of the mugs they kept in the cupboard of the lounge. They all said ‘SOUTH PARK HIGH’ on them.

“So…” Craig didn’t really know what to do next. They still had three weeks to go in this boring hell and while they had improved things a little bit by finding a coffee machine, they still had to figure out where to go from here. Craig loaded his cup with sugar and dry creamer as he tried to think of what to say. Or do. He was really out of practice when it came to talking and hanging out with friends.

“We should, ack, break into the library.” Craig looked up from his mug to see Tweek looking thoughtfully, a sparkle to his eye. “I mean, ngh, it’s not breaking and entering if, hng, we’re already in the school, right? And the principal said we could do whatever we, AH, want as long as we don’t b-break anything.”

Craig took a moment to thoughtfully watch Tweek try and justify breaking in to another part of the school as he sipped his coffee. “Sure.” He chuckled, pulling out a butter knife from the drawer to help with popping open the locks on the library doors. If they could get into the teacher lounge he was sure they could get in to anywhere, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have the time to do it. “Whatever you say.”

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my friends for giving me great coffee mug ideas. Feel free to send me more.


End file.
